The Bombay Company currently operates its over 400 retail locations in the United States and Canada, as well as a large mail order catalog business. Working with IBM Global Services, the team created a complete end-to-end Web solution that went live just before the 1999 holiday shopping rush.
The Bombay Company launched its first site in 1997, but it offered limited product selection and served primarily as a way for online customers to shop direct from the catalog. The latest site allows Bombay to offer its customers more of the selection of their brick-and-mortar stores, with the added flexibility to manage those merchandise offerings in-house.
"The WebSphere platform allows us to keep the site streamlined and fresh for the customer," remarks Cathy Pringle, VP of Marketing for Bombay. "At the same time, we focused on making the infrastructure stable and scaleable. Already the company has realized an increase in its online business from our ability to increase the product offering on the site."
IBM DB2 Universal Database is used to house the wide variety of products available for purchase as well as the customer order information. DB2 stores the full catalog of furniture, wall decor and decorative accessories, comprising of over 800 individual items. IBM's WebSphere Commerce Suite, the first integrated e-commerce solution, provides Bombay with the scalability, functionality and flexibility to allow the site to grow and adapt as new features are added to the site. Bombay is considering the addition of IBM's HotMedia, an interactive application that allows customers to shop in 3D, zoom in on products and view pieces from all sides.
For information on other IBM e-business success stories: www.software.ibm.com/casestudies.
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| Topics | XML feeds |
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| Software Information Management, Lotus, Tivoli, Rational, WebSphere, Open standards, open source |